Erdos Had The Number First

ChangeThis :: ChangeThis

I think I can blame Malcome Gladwell. Well, blame is the wrong word.

But regardless, it would seem that General Systems Theory has made a comback[1]

I’ve been a fan for a long time but that doesn’t mean the rest of the world has. Until recently, anyway. Now, all of a sudden everybody and their brother has realized that the whole is not the sum of its parts. People have been saying for years and years but it seems now that people are actually believing it.

Now, if only I could get into grad school.

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[1] Don’t call it a comeback, we’ve been here for years

One of the things that made BeOS so freeking cool was the BeOS file system. BFS was, quite frankly, the most advanced file system at the time. It was more like a database than a filesystem, and you could add/manipulate/whatever the file metadata at will. In fact, many applications for BeOS capitilized on the filesystems DB-like properties quite a bit.

For example, document metadata was stored as file attributes. This allowed you to search for a paticular file on your computer using this metadata in a powerful way.

There are a number of problems with implementing a database file system. The book about BFS covers many of these issues but even today there are no real DB based filesystems in broad use.

Enter Google Desktop. It’s funny that the second edition of Managing Gigabytes was relased in 1999.

MG, BFS, and all utilities like them (including Microsoft Indexing Services) are designed to do one thing: Alllow a user to store, manipulate, and find the information they need. GDS succeeds where all of these other fail.

It’s pretty impressive that, yet again, someone from Google has taken tech that was out there, but didn’t really work, and made it no longer out there, but rather it’s Right Here, Now.

Face value | St Lawrence of Google | Economist.com

Even the Economist thinks they’re really trying to build an AI.

I’ve been saying this for a long time. Google is an AI company. I don’t know if they’ll accomplish it, it is certainly a hard problem.

And even saying that doens’t adaquately communicate just how hard a problem it is. I wish them luck, and if they want to hire me, they
already know where to find me.

ABC News: Utah Theater Cancels ‘Brokeback Mountain’

OK, so one person is surprised. From the article,

Mike Thompson, executive director of the gay rights advocacy group Equality Utah, called it disappointing.

“It’s just a shame that such a beautiful and award-winning film with so much buzz about it is not being made available to a broad Utah audience because of personal bias,” he said.

I’m sorry that you live in Utah, Mike. but for god’s sake: it’s Utah!
They’re not homophobic, they are homodyssesthai:[1]. And not too shy about it.

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[1] my greek sucks, I’m trying to change afraid (phobic) to hatefull (odyssesthai)

Chrysler living in fantasy land, bears all at Detroit auto show

A muscle car. They have got to be out of their minds. Their PR departments talk about how americans love their muscle cars. They talk about how only Detroit can lay claim to the (dubious) heritage of
muscle cars.

I think Detroit has forgotten that the whole reason they stopped making these cars in the first place. That being 1) Japan and 2) Oil Crisis. Neither of these two things has stopped being a problem for them.

I guess maybe Detroit doesn’t car either. Their CEO’s bonuses will not be affected by the future takeover from Toyota. And besides, if Harley Davidson can be a niche player, why not GM? And everyone likes a hog, after all.

Maureen Dowd Columnist Page - The New York Times

But not really. I just wish the Op-Ed page of the NYT wasn’t a premium content thing. I want to read her column, mostly to provide fodder for my own, barely coherent rantings (I figure if the NYT pays people for the same kind of drivel, I should produce my own drivel). But I can’t because it’s “TimesSelect”.

Here’s the thing, this is another reason that newpsapers are steadily Going Out Of Buisness in this country. If you are really pushing an agenda, you should give it away. And if you are not really pushing an agenda, then why should I pay you to write things you don’t believe? Hell, I’ve got a Congressman for that.

It’s a brand new calendar year. In the spirit of time, the BBC has produced a list of 100 things we didn’t know this time last year. BBC NEWS | Magazine | 100 things we didn’t know this time last year

It’s pretty informative. Especially #63, that tells us that it takes less energy to import a tomatoe from spain than to grow one in England.
That is good stuff.